Godless Morality: Keeping Religion Out of Ethics

Rating:
Summary: Breaks new ground in disentangling morality from theism
Review: Bishop Holloway has done us as real service by writing this brilliant and courageous book. By helping us to separate religion and morals, he allows us all to move beyond theistic assumptions about morality to a new liberation. He does so in an engaging way that American readers in particular will appreciate. His clarity and skillful writing will also be a tonic for anyone who enjoys good writing. For those of us in the Church who are are becoming increasingly concerned about the growing dysfunction of conventional Christianity, this book leads us into fresh air.

Rating:
Summary: Recommended
Review: Bishop Holloway presents cogent arguments for reconsidering some of our moral positions, reminding us that religion has often been used to lock us into conformity with moral regulations that are in fact culturally determined. Many of us are no longer willing to base our morality on "blind obedience to any authority, including what is alleged to be divine authority." As our thinking about authority evolves, we may require a "more dynamic understanding of God," one that is more in synchrony with the process of creation. Because Christianity "absorbed as much as it rejected" of Gnostic thought in the early centuries of the Church, creation and its pleasures have been regarded as essentially sinful. Few people today hold that view, but the Christian attitude toward sexuality remains tainted by these Gnostic borrowings, as the attitude of many in the Church towards homosexuality and current sexual mores demonstrates. In his examination of our attitudes toward homosexuality, the use of drugs, sex, and marriage, Bishop Holloway encourages an open and honest look at our beliefs. Recommended for those both inside and outside the Church who are willing to think again.

Rating:
Summary: Provacative!
Review: Bishop Holloway provides us with a provacative, compassionate, occasionally humorous and always well reasoned argument to develop a non-theocentric ethic for the twenty-first century. Not since Joseph Fletcher has the world seen such a strong argument for a coherent situational ethic.

Fundamentalists of all stripes will undoubtably object to Bishop Holloway's efforts to outline a moral system requiring the consent of those who live within it. Such a system would potentially undermine the absolute authority that Church, State, Synagogue, Mosque and Temple have too often claimed for themselves.

Despite the inevitable objections of the ethical establishment, Bishop Holloway's intellectually sophisticated argument offers the possibility of a new morality that will appeal to the millions who have opted out of older, absolute, authoritarian systems.

Rating:
Summary: Provacative!
Review: Bishop Holloway provides us with a provacative, compassionate, occasionally humorous and always well reasoned argument to develop a non-theocentric ethic for the twenty-first century. Not since Joseph Fletcher has the world seen such a strong argument for a coherent situational ethic.

Fundamentalists of all stripes will undoubtably object to Bishop Holloway's efforts to outline a moral system requiring the consent of those who live within it. Such a system would potentially undermine the absolute authority that Church, State, Synagogue, Mosque and Temple have too often claimed for themselves.

Despite the inevitable objections of the ethical establishment, Bishop Holloway's intellectually sophisticated argument offers the possibility of a new morality that will appeal to the millions who have opted out of older, absolute, authoritarian systems.

Rating:
Summary: Lucid and Provocative
Review: Halfway through this book, I began to get very anxious. I hadn't yet disagreed with a single point. Did that mean my thinking cap wasn't screwed on properly? Maybe it's just that Holloway has written a brilliant work. He makes important observations and asks hard questions, tackling issues of homosexuality (what's the big deal?), abortion (it's a complex issue), and the Bible (why should it have any more authority over us than Shakespeare does?). We must never think that we've reached our final answers, especially if the answer was developed in another time and place. Answers that made sense within the Biblical worldview of monarchy and patriarchy will not necessarily make sense for us today. He says we must engage in intelligent improvization, "ethical jazz." It was especially interesting to read this knowing that Holloway is a former Bishop.

In addition to my nervousness at being unable to find philosophical fault with his positions, perhaps, as a writer myself, I was a little jealous. Holloway's prose is witty, intelligent, and engaging, carefully premeditated and refined. Nearly every sentence is quotable. I checked the book jacket in hopes of learning his secret. The photo showed a white-haired man and a caption identifying "Godless Morality" as his twenty-second book. Life experience and writing experience have indeed yielded valuable wisdom here.

Towards the end of the book, I felt a wave of relief--there was finally something I disagreed with. Holloway seemed to be spooked by the moral relativism that was the natural conclusion to his argument, and beat a hasty retreat. He said (after Isaiah Berlin) that, despite the shades of gray in specific moral quandaries, there are universal human values. These include (loosely) avoiding causing harm and requiring consent from others. But Holloway should have realized that, if the application of these values permits so much gray area, the values themselves must not be crystal clear. He should also have recognized that these values follow from our peaceable, cosmopolitan, democratic worldview. He easily identifies the root causes of other people's strange beliefs, but when it comes to his own beliefs, he only admits to subscribing to ahistorical, universal values. This defensive, irrational, and philosophically arrogant "conclusion" left a sour tinge on what was otherwise a flawless book. It was still a joy to read and, although Holloway is afraid of the word "relativism," highly recommendable to those who want to see what a humanist and relativist moral theory looks like.

Rating:
Summary: Refreshing view of ethics
Review: Holloway is a recently retired Anglican bishop, which makes the title of his book even more interesting than it would be otherwise. He takes a very refreshing view of ethics, arguing that in a society where the Bible is no longer regarded as the fount of all knowledge, attempting to appeal to it as the support for a system of ethics is futile. The most impressive feature of his argument is his appeal to the pastoral harm inflicted by such an approach, with multiple examples.

Rating:
Summary: Choosing between competing moral values:
Review: Holloway starts right out giving us a challenge: "What many people have clearly departed from is any sense that the moral life, lived intentionally and consciously, is consistent with blind obedience to any authority, including what is alleged to be divine authority." And things get better from there! This tightly argued book puts into words what many of us seem to struggle with in our discussions of good and evil, sin, and meaning in life.

Holloway has recently stepped down as Bishop of Edinburgh. He is "one of the most outspoken and best-loved figures in the modern church." And I had the privilege of hearing him speak recently at a seminar on the future of faith. It is perhaps because I heard him expound upon his views that I learned so much by going back to read his book. Yet I find the writing to be clear and convincing on its own. I was shocked and pleased to read this from the good Bishop's pen: "Paradoxically, it is scripture itself that calls us to overturn scripture; it is the witness of the living word of Jesus that challenges us to follow the logic that scripture was made for humanity and not humanity for scripture." These are courageous words indeed for a Bishop to write and preach. He deserves praise and support for this stand.

Richard Holloway challenges us on many levels of our daily lives. He changes our concept of how to choose between competing moral values (often good values, not straight good versus straight evil). He makes us think about our institutions of marriage, church, and government as the recipient of our moral judgments and challenges us to live up to the responsibility with a Godless Morality. Excellent book.

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Summary: Another tragic attack from a liberal Bishop
Review: Richard Holloway attacks fundamental theology with a series of personal attacks that are unfounded. Many Christians with fundamental beliefs do question their beliefs and think them through and discuss them, and to say that our views of sexuality are from the Gnostic Church defies the writings of many New Testament scholars who say otherwise. It is sad and tragic about the state of the Church today that yet another Bishop can come out with such a piece of work. Thankfully these are in the minority but are very vocal.